Wednesday, April 6, 2011

This issue begins with an extremely nervous Foxy attempting to free Agrivar and Ishi. Unfortunately, their jailer is a god, so Foxy gets caught in the act.

As Foxy leaves, he encourages Ishi to remain unconscious since Labelas’ Chaotic Good alignment apparently prevents him from raping sleeping women. Foxy doesn’t notice that Ishi is merely playing possum.

Back up top, Labelas continues being a major dick to everyone. He does his own version of “Alas, poor Yorick!” with Minder’s head and threatens to release Captain Omen’s fatal disease back to him if Omen fails to do his bidding.

Apparently Captain Omen picked up some sleight of hand in his travels, because during his pleading for his life with Labelas he managed to palm the magical key to Agrivar and Ishi’s bonds. For reasons unknown, the two choose to have a whispered conversation about it in front of the god. Luckily for them, Labelas must be preoccupied or stupid because he fails to connect the dots.

Maybe Labelas is preoccupied after all, because as soon as the Realms’ Master crew leaves he begins arguing with himself. Well, more correctly he begins arguing with the part of him who is still Vartan.

Vartan is understandably upset by recent events, but Labelas counters that all of this internal arguing is tearing his godly form apart and that Vartan should just calm down while Labelas murders, threatens and rapes his friends. Vartan ultimately concedes that he has no choice, and sets Labelas up for his best line in the series.

Foxy proves that Mama Cardluck didn’t raise no quitters as he attempts to free Agrivar and Ishi again. He proves much more successful now that he has the magic key.

Meanwhile, Captain Omen continues to make the modifications Labelas demanded to the Astrolabe. Once they are completed, Labelas launches the Realms’ Master into the sky as part of his mad plan to take down Helm and force his way back into the heavens.

Victory seems within Labelas’ grasp when team Agrivar, Ishi, and Foxy show up to take him down. Of course they quickly run into the same problem they did the last time they fought Labelas, namely that he is a god and they are merely mortals.

Some quick thinking on Captain Omen’s part helps even the odds. He opens up the Demiplane of Fear, figuring if it is good enough to dispose of unwanted artifacts that it should work equally well on unwanted deities. Captain Omen and Ishi then hurl the jars containing Omen’s death and Foxy’s addiction at Labelas, hoping the god’s own magic will hurt him.

It works long enough for Ishi to kick him into the demiplane. At first Labelas scoffs at this tactic, but soon realizes that some presence in the Demiplane of Fear prevents him from entering. Thus a disembodied and helpless Labelas is forced to flee while Vartan floats helplessly in the void.

Agrivar is unwilling to leave Vartan behind and selflessly hurls himself into the void after the elf. Ishi throws them a rope and hauls the two of them back to the ship. They both promptly collapse.

At this point Ishi assumes the threat is over, but Captain Omen knows better. The Realms’ Master is still on a collision course with the gates of heaven, and they no longer have a god of their own onboard to deal with the guardian god Helm.

Captain Omen decides the only chance they have is a blind teleport. He activates the astrolabe, but not before Helm cuts the Realms’ Master in two!

The issue ends with the remains of the Realms’ Master strewn across a desert. The only sign of our heroes is the head of Minder in the wreckage.

Thoughts

IDW just collected the first eight issues as Forgotten Realms Classics. If it sells well I imagine more will follow. When I first started posting recaps and reviews of a twenty year old comic book, I never imagined it would become topical again.

Not a huge fan of Labelas repeatedly increasing Agrivar’s need to drink. I understand it is the jumping off point for upcoming storylines, but having him do it once should have been enough.

It was nice to see the crew come together at the end. I especially liked that Agrivar flung himself after Vartan without any thought of his own safety.

I admit to being somewhat lukewarm on the avatar storyline as a whole, but this issue has a hell of a cliffhanger ending!